Democracy, Globalization, and the Problem of the State
Abstract

Globalization’s effects on democracy have received much attention recently, though there is little consensus about what precisely those effects are or how they should be addressed. Critics are almost evenly divided among those who propose cosmopolitan solutions and those who favor reinvigorating democracy at the state level. This article argues that we are not prepared to decide such issues because current analyses of the problem confuse globalization’s effects on states with its effects on democracy and rest on problematic assumptions about the relationship between states and democracy. An alternative approach that uses globalization as a lens through which to focus on this relationship reveals that the problem is deeper and more complex than either of the existing accounts recognizes. A sound analysis of the problem must begin with a better understanding of the origins, nature, and implications of democracy’s spatial and normative ties to the state and its entanglement with the modern discourse of sovereignty.